CRICKET
PUTTING A FACE ON IT GRACE GIBBS
G
The Chance to Shine scheme aims to increase participation at grassroots level
especially if they are forced to play their cricket on a week night or on a Saturday morning before boys’ games. In short, we need to make sure there are a number of opportunities to change the structure and the format of traditional cricket to make it more accessible for girls.” The two remaining areas on Redfern’s
list are the demand for facilities and the need for even more role models. “If we haven’t got anywhere to play
and grounds are not accessible then it’s unlikely that we’re going to retain the players, no matter how successful our Chance to Shine and school programmes are. So we need to make sure that our cricket grounds are available to girls. Also, we need to create and retain role models in the game. If girls have got something to aspire to, it becomes a natural choice – rather than it being a case of ‘that’s a bit funny, that girl’s playing cricket’.
FACILITIES
The ECB’s national funding and facilities manager, Bruce Cruse is responsible for the implementation of the ECB’s facilities strategy, which was first devised in 2000. Since then, each county has had an updated, individual facilities strategy drawn up, identifying their
race’s first taste of cricket, at eight years of age, was at an MCC Spirit of Cricket programme at her school, St
Winifred’s RC Primary in Lee, Lewisham. Already a keen footballer, she quickly found that she was a better cricketer than many boys of her own age. None of the Lewisham-based clubs
offered girls’ cricket, so initially she at- tended cricket camps organised by sports delivery company Teachsport. She now attends sessions at Bromley
Common Cricket Club’s top talent net, alongside 14- and 15-year-old boys, and also travels to Canterbury on Saturday afternoons for net sessions with Kent County Cricket Club. She is now a member of Old Coelfiens
Cricket Club, as they run a girls’ section, and also plays for Blackheath Ladies.
particular needs and requirements. The most recent county-wide revision of the facilities strategy was signed off in January 2009 so all 39 counties cur- rently have a strategy which is, in Cruse’s words, “fairly fresh”. He adds that the increase in cricket’s
popularity – among girls and boys – has created extra pressures on facilities, but that recent funding decisions show just how important women’s and girls’ cricket has become when devising action plans. “To show the level of importance that
cricket places on the development of women’s and girls’ cricket, you only have to look at the way we plan to distribute our Sport England money,” he says. “A total of £12m in the Sport England con- tract will be used to execute and invest directly and exclusively into the women’s and girls’ game over the next three years. Half (£6m) of that will be capi- tal expenditure, so that’s something my facilities team is working on with the women’s and girls’ department. “The first 40 of those contracts will
be executed later this year. The remain- ing £6m has been allocated to revenue and to generate further activity and infrastructural support. So in total, a third of our Sport England fund- ing has been earmarked to go directly into women’s and girls’ cricket.”
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Q. How much cricket do you play in a typical week?
I train every Tuesday or Wednesday and have Kent matches on Saturdays. I also play for Blackheath Ladies on Sundays.
Q. Would you like to play more cricket than you do at the moment?
In some ways I do think I get enough cricket but it would be good if my school also did cricket so it could give other girls a chance to play as well.
Q. How would you get more girls in the UK to play more cricket?
I would like to see cricket in every school and every girl would have to have a taster session. This would give girls more of an opportunity to see if they are good at the sport. Sometimes girls think cricket is just for boys.
One of the flagship projects which
Cruse and his team are currently work- ing on is the Harrogate Cricket Club in Yorkshire. The plan is to build a brand new two-storey facility, which will serve as a regional centre of excellence for women’s cricket. “The aim is to have the centre up
and running by early 2011,” Cruse says. “We’ve been working with the York- shire Cricket Board and the club on the scheme and the hope is that the Harro- gate facility, which will be developed as a two-ground site, will develop into an international site for womens cricket.”
FUTURE
So what of the future of the sport? Women’s cricket has grown exponen-
tially but there is still plenty of room for future growth. Connor believes that the nature of cricket is perfectly suited to girls of all abilities and sees further improvements at all levels. “The strength of cricket is that you can
play loads of it during the summer holi- day and the cricket club environments are family places. They are safe, welcom- ing, embracing, sociable and the cricket culture environment in this country is, for me, a fantastic place to grow up.” ●
T om Walker is a Leisure Media journalist
Issue 2 2010 © cybertrek 2010
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